Bar Kokhba Revolt — The Last Jewish War
Judaea revolted against Rome in 132 and the province was renamed to erase it. The rising followed sixty years of accumulated grievance since the destruction of the Temple in 70, and its immediate causes are disputed: Cassius Dio gives Hadrian's decision to found a Roman colony called Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem with a temple to Jupiter, and other sources give a prohibition on circumcision. Simon bar Kosiba took the leadership and was hailed by Rabbi Akiva as bar Kokhba, son of a star, which is a messianic title from the book of Numbers. The rebels ran a state for two and a half years. They struck their own coinage overdating Roman issues, dated documents by the years of the redemption of Israel, and administered land leases and contracts — the letters found in the caves of the Judaean desert in the 1950s and 1960s are his own correspondence, written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and they are peremptory in tone. Rome committed some twelve legions or detachments of them under Julius Severus, who refused open battle and reduced the strongholds one at a time. Betar fell in 135. Cassius Dio gives 580,000 Jewish dead and fifty fortified towns and 985 villages destroyed, and says that Hadrian omitted the customary formula about the health of himself and the army from his report to the senate. The province was renamed Syria Palaestina, Jews were barred from Jerusalem, and Akiva was executed. It is the last Jewish revolt against Rome.
- Year: 132 CE
- Category: Military
